The US is the largest crude oil producer in the world, pumping out nearly 13 million barrels on average every day in 2023, an all-time record, according to new data from the US Energy Information Administration.

That’s an awkward milestone for President Joe Biden, who has arguably done more than any modern president to facilitate America’s transition away from fossil fuels to greener alternatives.

The U.S. led the world in oil production for the sixth consecutive year in 2023, according to a new report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Crude oil production in the U.S., including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023 — a level which surpassed the American and global record of 12.3 million b/d that the U.S. set in 2019. Average monthly U.S. crude oil production also reached a record high in December 2023 at more than 13.3 million b/d.

In mid-December, I wrote here that the U.S. had set a new annual oil production record:

“The U.S. set a new annual oil production record on December 15, based on data from the Energy Information Administration. Although the official monthly numbers from the EIA won’t be released for a couple of months, we can calculate that a new record has been set based on the following analysis.”

President Joe Biden took another ax to American energy Wednesday with the cancellation of Trump-era leases for oil and gas development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In 2017 through the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress opened up a 1.6-million-acre patch along Alaska’s north coast for drilling leases. The section amounts to less than 10 percent of the entire refuge, which spans 19.6 million acres in northeast Alaska and is about the size of South Carolina.